Listen while you can

[steve888]

Will someone give us a heads up when the encryption starts? Today is September 10 and I have not detected any testing yet of the new system (which does not mean anything) plus I do not monitor DC that much to begin with. I called a friend at the Washington Post but they do not seem to care. They will unless the Chief lets them have a couple of radios which is doubtful.

Wow...you would think the Post would be very vocally opposed to this. I find it very odd that they aren't. It's also hard to believe that a city like DC...one of the most liberal cities in the country...that is always talking about the rights of the individual and how DC is so oppressed because they don't have voting rights...is encrypting everything.

One of the staples of a democratic society is the right of the people to be able to observe the actions of those who enforce the law. That's why it's not illegal to videotape or photograph the police in public places, even when they are carrying out their duties. I would think listening to scanner traffic falls into the same arena...the right of the people to observe law enforcement. I'm not talking about tactical investigations where a scanner listener could actually jeopardize the investigation or an officer's safety...but just run-of-the-mill scanner traffic. I just don't get it. Sounds to me like DCMPD just wants to be able to operate in total secrecy (and total unaccountability).

 

[JoeyC]

The US Capitol, the White House and other government buildings are the "Peoples Houses". As a citizen, taxpayer or visitor from a foreign land, you have the right to visit these public buildings. This does not mean you have unfettered access to them.

The number of people that feel the need to listen to police radio as a hobby is extremely low in comparison to the entire population, especially in big cities. Media people have always had, and will continue to have contacts within law enforcement agencies that provide information to the press. I don't find it unusual at all that a following of such an insignificant size is silent about this.

If MPD wanted to operate in complete secrecy they would likely remove all marked police vehicles from the fleet and operate unmarked vehicles 100% of the time. In addition to other measures.

 

[ka3jjz]

During the 5pm newscast, WJLA had a news item about this very topic. In it they showed what looked like a 796, a 246 and a PRO-96, and some other scanners I didn't catch. I couldn't hear everything they said because it was a bit too noisy in the gym, but the point about the system being unmonitorable as of Thursday was plainly mentioned.

best regards..Mike

 

[zerg901]

https://sites.google.com/site/scannerstorys/home/2006/tyler-texas---2nd-suspect-charged

2006 - Tyler Texas - scannerist busts perps who shot Trooper

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Steve888 - when the US tanks rolled into Baghdad, did you see any civilians run into the streets waving their scanners? Course not.

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How many Capitol Police are there now? 2,000? 3,000 ? Ya think that DC is a little out of control? (1,700 as of 2007 per http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/United_States_Capitol_Police )

 

[steve888]

https://sites.google.com/site/scannerstorys/home/2006/tyler-texas---2nd-suspect-charged

2006 - Tyler Texas - scannerist busts perps who shot Trooper

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Steve888 - when the US tanks rolled into Baghdad, did you see any civilians run into the streets waving their scanners? Course not.

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How many Capitol Police are there now? 2,000? 3,000 ? Ya think that DC is a little out of control? (1,700 as of 2007 per United States Capitol Police - Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia )

Wow, interesting story about the scanner listener in Texas who was observant enough to notice the two bad guys. Yeh, and as far as Baghdad goes, like I mentioned in one of my earlier posts, if you look at totalitarian regimes in the world (North Korea, China, Syria, to name a few) the one thing they have in common is that the police and military operate in more or less total secrecy with impunity. They can basically do whatever they want to anyone and there's nothing anyone can do about it.

In a free and democratic society, the actions of the police and military are open to scrutiny by the public for the express purpose of making sure the police/military are not violating the rights of the citizens guaranteed to them under the Constitution. We seem to be moving farther and farther away from that principle in America today. It seems like all the police have to do is use words like "public safety", "officer safety", or "911" and they can get whatever they want (in this case, encrypting all of DCMPD radio traffic).

I've lived here since 1985 and I've never heard of an officer being killed or injured by some bad guy with a scanner...and by this area I mean the DC, MD, VA tri-state area. Any time the police are doing something that's high risk all they have to do is switch to a tac channel. There's no need to encrypt everything.

 

[jkahn]

Will someone give us a heads up when the encryption starts? Today is September 10 and I have not detected any testing yet of the new system (which does not mean anything) plus I do not monitor DC that much to begin with.

The encryption went live on September 11th for most talkgroups. Citywide 1 and 2 are both in the clear (so far) as is 6D. I have caught sporadic chatter on other t/gs but almost nothing else.

I am using the HP-1 and my 396T and covering both 460 and 800 systems.

DCFD seems to be unaffected, as the article said it would be. I don't know what they are using for encryption, but I don't even get a squeal, nor does the radio stop when a t/g goes active, like it does on other systems with encrypted t/gs.

Dewey: you able to get any inside info?

JK

 

[freqhopping]

I just tuned in and every channel is in the clear except for those that were already encrypted like the Capitol PD.

 

[ka3jjz]

The changeover is supposed to happen sometime today. It's quite likely this will be staged - perhaps a few radios are being done on Tuesday as a test of some kind. By tomorrow, evidently, noise will be the rule, assuming all the reports are correct, insofar as the police stuff goes...best regards..Mike

 

[steve888]

Thursday (9/15/11)

I was watching NewsChannel 8 this morning and they said the cutover is going to happen tomorrow (9/15/11). They said that news and traffic reporters will not have access, nor will the general public...cops only. They quoted Chief Lanier who said that criminals who are using scanners and streaming scanner traffic online are "hampering police investigations".

Here's an online stream of DCMPD if anyone wants to listen for a few more hours

Washington DC Metropolitan Police Live Scanner Radio Feed

 

[zerg901]

http://statter911.com/2011/07/31/wh...itors-decide-what-is-isnt-okay-for-us-to-see/

DCPD Asst Chief Groomes explains why it is OK for police to confiscate scanners - er - cameras

 

[Chris45]

Bye, Bye, DC Police

Well tomorrow the monitors and streaming of the DC Police will fall silent according to News Channel 8.

But wait, there is more!

The DC Police Chief said that this action was necessary because the criminals are using police communications to circumvent law enforcement activity.

The snowball is now in motion, and will likely get larger as more police department follow suit.

Can you really blame them, considering how open certain activities have made this hobby?

 

[Citywide173]

The one thing I would like to see is hard numbers. The police are citing the smart phone apps....in the past it was criminals with scanners....the way they have always found out that these technologies were in use was because they CAUGHT THE MORON CRIMINALS that were using the technology. Can these departments link the availability of these technologies to an increase in crime? Can they prove that they are unable to solve crimes because of this technology?

It's nothing more than agencies that don't want the public that pays their salaries monitoring them that use the "officer safety" excuse.

 

[Chris45]

Hard Numbers

I do agree with you about this, but I do not believe they ever had the intention of providing such a justification. I remember that over the eons of time, many police officials asserting a belief regarded as a right to argue against folks from listening to their radio traffic. To be sure, many listeners, myself included, have helped the police in performing their services. Having heard the description of a robbery vehicle thst passed me, I phoned the police and told them where it was. They thought this was great.

Being taxpayers, we have a good arguement over both the cost and efficiency of encryption. I can see some secure channels, but not all. Monitoring also provided a "citizen eye" on what the police were doing. Many a citizen actually developed a sense of security hearing their PD in operation. But considerations like that do not have meaning anymore. Now they need to remove all those laws establishing prosecution for criminals using police communications for bad purposes. In the end, like all such BS, somebody is making a name for themself, and you can surely believe that money is involved.

 

[W2NJS]

The radio discipline or, more accurately the lack of same, has always been a problem on the MPD channels. Fifteen minutes of monitoring will, I guarantee, drive you absolutely nuts. At present I monitor their 460 mHz trunked (sort of) P25 system by just scanning the ten or so channels the system uses. Our chief, while basically a good person, is more driven by political forces than anything else and that goes for many department chiefs. I don't think that she has an "Us Vs. Them" mentality but rather is being given bad advice. She also has serious union problems with the rank-and-file officers and is working for a new mayor who, for the time being, has decided to keep her in the job.

 

[Chris45]

To: W2NJS

I can relate to what you say. I have been monitoring since around 1966. Even in the old days, a bank of channels dedicated to the DC Police would literally jam the whole scanner operation. Even after trunking the system the scanner would stick on DC, slowly hopping from one talkgroup to the next. Hey! Maybe someone out to tell them that, and save the money spent on encryption. Most of the old guys I knew with the department went to the newly formed WMATA Police (METRO) after they retired from DC. And a great bunch of guys they were. Many of them actually were very open-minded and encouraged folks to monitor. When asked why they felt that way, the simple response was they were pround of their work, and had nothing to hide.

I certainly hope that DC has performed an acceptable phase-in of the new system. You know, keep using what you know is reliable until you are confident the new system is problem free. Many times, this does not happen. So we will sit back now and watch what happens. There will always be problems, and within a year or less someone will be catching the flack for the short falls. Hopefully no one will be killed because of it. It is interesting having a public service using a private communications system.

 

[AES-256]

I certainly hope that DC has performed an acceptable phase-in of the new system.

This is not a new system, it's the same Smartzone system that it has always been. The subscribers are just getting UCM's with an encryption algorithm.

 

[Chris45]

This is Encouraging

This is not a new system, it's the same Smartzone system that it has always been. The subscribers are just getting UCM's with an encryption algorithm.

If things really screw-up, or do not work well, they can easily reverse the error.

 

[brownlab]

As the day comes

Well there is not a lot more we can say about this issue. The TGs should be encrypted by the end of the week if the media reports are accurate. I still do not buy Chief Lanier explanation of the "safety of police officers" to spend money on radio encryption which BTW is not free. She has been a cop long enough to know that police scanners do not aid the common criminal in the commission of a crime. Ironically it is another type of radio known as the cell phone which is the most useful tool in the world of crime today. If the police are busting drug dealers on one block, all the other dealers in the city know about in less than a minute (some of these kids can text faster than they can talk). If the police have a warrant to arrest someone and he is not at home, odds are that the suspect will know about it before the officers get back to their patrol car. If a gang of shoplifters is running an operation in a mall, you can be sure they all are comuncating on BB or I-Phones. Remember when they started taking pay phones out of "certain" neighborhoods or fixed them so they could only make outgoing phone calls? Well that worked for about 5 minutes until the pager came along followed by the cell phone and a good cell phone with or without that scanner APP is worth a thousand police scanners. I have said and still say that the Chief is much more concerned about city council staffs, the media, and even other law enforcement agencies located in the city (despite her pledge to share the codes) monitoring her department operations (I wonder if the DEA shares their codes?) As far as interoperability with other departments, I have to leave that to the radio experts. Can they? Sure. Do they? I really don’t know. Can the MPD speak to PG on a radio while the crooks are running back and forth across Southern Ave? If the MPD is in a hot pursuit across the 14th bridge will they be able to speak to the VSP? These are important questions that deserve answers. Since 9/11 billions have been spent to, among other things, improve public safety communications. COG Fire Departments have done a decent job with radio interoperability yet our local police departments in the DC metro area seems to employ the "Tower of Babble" concept in regards to communicating with each other. I do not know what all of these police chiefs are afraid of but I doubt it is really a couple of kids with a cell phone app. (As I write this, the Virginia State Police is pursuing a motorcycle across the WW Bridge. You would think that they would be speaking with Maryland State but I guess they don’t have that technology). MPD in coming in loud and clear right now. Let see what I get at 6 AM.

 

[ka3jjz]

According to Scan-DC and Andrew Clegg, it's a done deal...
======================================================================
The switchover occurred on a district-by-district basis. Approximate times for each district, based on the time tag of the last logged recording:

9/15/2011
2D 01:11
1D 01:12
4D 01:19
3D 01:23
5D 01:36
7D 01:37
6D 01:48

Each switchover was preceded by the dispatcher instructing "All <x>D units, switch your mobile and your handhelds to the secure channel. If you have any problems switch over to citywide channel."

As of this morning, the citywide channel (tg16624 in zone 1 ka3jjz) is still in the clear.
======================================================
Time to validate and get the changes into the db Mike

 

[jasonpeoria911]

I'm guessing that is going to be the case. Normal day to day district dispatching will be encrypted but they'll keep Citywide in the clear so citizens and maybe the media can still monitor the BOLO's and major incidents after an Officer is already on scene. Back when DC went digital, they continued to simulcast on the VHF Citywide frequency for at least a year if I remember right. I guess Citywide is better than nothing.

Jason